


quo vadis

by saltedpin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M, Road Trip!, Tattoos, a bit of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 15:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14115753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/pseuds/saltedpin
Summary: And yet, he is here now, under a lantern's pale, wavering glow with his arm outstretched before him, watching as that same ink is embedded beneath his skin by a man whom he should hate.





	quo vadis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Koraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koraki/gifts).



> Set during Scar and Marcoh's post-Envy battle road trip. 
> 
> Thanks so much to Apathy for betaing this and listening to me complain about it at length.
> 
> For Koraki and fandom crossover excellence <3

He has always known it will be the work of weeks, not days. 

He doesn't remember how long it took for his brother to complete the tattoos, and he doesn't remember because he had deliberately closed his eyes to it. He had done his best to ignore the spiralling ribbons of ink slowly unfurling across his brother's skin - to him, they had always seemed like a symbol of alchemy's seeping, indelible corruption.

He had not understood it then, and he cannot say he truly wishes to understand it now. It had all seemed like delusion, like an unfathomable arrogance that human hands could create something better, something more whole than what had been given to them by Ishvala. 

_And yet._

And yet, he is here now, under a lantern's pale, wavering glow with his arm outstretched before him, watching as that same ink is embedded beneath his skin by a man whom he should hate.

Marcoh's head is bowed, the meagre flame picking out the threads of silver in his hair, his right hand holding the inky needle while the fingers on his left slowly trace their way across the pages of his brother's notes, keeping his place, following the loops of the pattern they describe. 

They do not speak, and when the dawn comes, Marcoh raises his head, one hand massaging the back of his neck, his eyes remaining downcast. 

 

*

 

There's a deep throb in his arm where Marcoh's needle has pierced the skin a thousand times over the course of the evening; he had thought he had become inured to pain, and he has, but this low, persistent ache is something different, something he has not felt before. 

The firelight trickles through the grooves of scars and burn marks that cross Marcoh's face as he works. He is not sure that he regrets what he did to the man's face - it was necessary, and Marcoh himself does not seem to care - but he does remember the fear in Marcoh's eyes as he had closed his hand over his face. For all that he had begged for death only a few hours earlier, no man is prepared for it when it comes. 

He has sometimes thought of that cell beneath the city, and the way Marcoh had fallen to his knees, laughed like a madman and begged him to take his life. Perhaps he had been waiting for Marcoh to do it again, to ask him once more to end his existence, but he realises now that he has been wrong: there is a seam of iron that runs through Marcoh, newly unearthed, after a lifetime of having lain buried. He believes he knows what drives Marcoh now, what gives him the strength to keep trudging through the snow, even though his life up until this point has hardly prepared him for the journey they are undertaking. Marcoh is filled with purpose, it seems: a purpose that burns brightly enough that it swallows up the fatigue he must feel, and holds his hand steady as he wraps his fingers around his forearm and marks his skin with things he does not understand, and does not necessarily trust.

There is no part of him that does not seem empty. The things that had once seemed to fill him have burned themselves out and turned to ash, and now there is a space inside him that feels like it is waiting; a space in which his soul might come forward and prove itself merciful after all. 

"There's still so much to do." Marcoh sounds discouraged as he lays aside the needle, opening and closing his fist as if it pains him. "I don't like to stop there in the middle of a line, but to make an error...." He trails off, grimacing.

"Are you tired?"

Marcoh glances up at him, little more than a quick dart of his eye. "A little."

"Then you should sleep."

For a moment it seems as if Marcoh will argue with him or say he does not need it, but then he nods, before lowering his head and turning away. 

 

*

 

"The ink is finished now," Marcoh says one evening, while the moon is still high, milky light filtering through the window of the shack they have sheltered in the for the night. "I'm sure that's all of it. It's... different from what I know." He pauses, his eye moving slowly over the page, as if to be sure. "Your brother must have been a brilliant man," he murmurs, before he glances up and catches his breath, what's left of his lips pulling together quickly.

He does not answer. Instead, he simply turns his forearm over in Marcoh's grip, closing his fist and watching as the tattoo moves on his skin. "It's finished, then?"

Marcoh shakes his head. "Not yet." He turns, before lifting the page of notepaper, one finger tracing across it. "These parts are the ink - these bands. But the symbols here and here -" he lowers his finger "- are distinct." He pauses, lowering the page. "I will need to... to find some other method, perhaps -"

"Do whatever you must," he says.

 

* 

 

The weather becomes warmer the further south they travel, skirting close to the border of the desert as they go. He is used to such things, but he can see the rivulets of sweat that make their way down the mask of scar tissue that now covers Marcoh's face. 

He has seen the way some of their new companions have looked at Marcoh, fear and curiosity mingling in their eyes; but even if he had not known exactly where and how Marcoh's face had come by its current aspect, he knows better than anyone that men are not the forms they inhabit. 

They retire to the privacy of a small shack when the last of the sunlight has died on the horizon. Marcoh's hand shakes as he takes up the scalpel. It is as sharp as glass and he barely feels it as it sinks into his forearm, sweeping down in a long arc through his skin. 

There is nothing to say during these times; nothing that he wishes to say, in any case. Time trickles by almost without him noticing, and he might have been tempted to believe he had slipped into sleep, were it not for the awareness of Marcoh's breath against the inside of his wrist. 

The pale light of the rising sun has barely touched the sky when Marcoh's hand slips, driving the tip of the scalpel too deeply into his flesh; Marcoh's horror is instantaneous and vocal. 

"I'm sorry," he says as he grabs a damp washcloth from beside his thigh. Marcoh glances up when he does not answer, and asks, "It didn't hurt?"

"It is unavoidable." 

Marcoh wipes at the blood, grimacing and muttering under his breath, before wrapping a bandage around the wound. He sits back, clearly unsettled, the lines around his eyes deeper even than usual. "I had hoped..." he begins, before looking away, pressing his lips together. "Once, I told myself that I would never lift a finger again to cause any harm to another. But...."

He feels his fingers twitching, as if he wants to raise his hand - but he refrains, instead curling his fingers into a fist. "You are not harming me. There is a difference."

Marcoh's shoulders rise as he breathes, a long, slow exhalation. "I know. Of course it is - I know. But still... I wish there was some other way. It isn't...." He looks up, blinking. "When I was in the village, I thought I was atoning for the things I'd done. That's what I told myself, in any case, even if I knew there was nothing I could do that would make up for it." He swallows. "Not even death." 

"It's easy to die," he says, and it's true. 

Marcoh's shoulders hunch slightly, his hands gripping his own arms. "You must think me a coward."

He doesn't answer him, but he thinks, _I don't._

 

*

 

When it is finally done, Marcoh dresses, undresses and redresses the marks he has made, tending them carefully as they heal. The wound has settled into a dull, warm throb that he finds he can ignore easily enough as they walk, but he still finds himself anticipating the times in the evening when Marcoh will slowly unwind the bandages from around his arm, careful in his competence, and make low, pleased sounds at the progress of the healing. The antiseptic he brushes over the wounds is an agony that feels like a flash of white light trickling through his veins, that curls his fingers and makes him suck in air through his teeth, but it is a pure, cleansing pain, chasing out the impurity and whatever infection might take root within him, and he finds that he can bear it.

The pain subsides the further they go, until it is no more than a slight burn, something he can easily ignore. The clean white scar tissue curves over his arm, and Marcoh no longer needs to dress it. When they sit together at night, he often catches Marcoh's gaze lingering, before his eyes skitter away.

"Will it work?" he asks one night after they have eaten, and Marcoh sits, his head bowed over his brother's research notes.

Marcoh looks up, blinking. "If everything is correct - if what we discovered is the truth -" His voice falters, and he looks down. "But then, I'm superstitious enough to not want to say it out loud," he finishes. "We can only hope." 

 

*

 

Hope is something that has been alien to him for so long that it seems strange to hear it spoken aloud. There are too many things that he wants - and has wanted - and he does not dare put a name to any of them, and it seems too much to allow himself the luxury of considering that any of them might be granted to him.

Marcoh briefly touches his arm as they turn east, the dawn in the sky, and all the things that cannot be forgiven in their wake.


End file.
